Selecting and using personal protective equipment

Selecting and using personal protective equipment Introduction 

Personal protective equipment (PPE) has a twofold role in the workplace. In some cases it is a passive safety measure, used to minimize injmy if other protective measures fail. But it is also used as the main means of injttry prevention in situations where it is impossible to guarantee the effectiveness of other safety measures, e.g. penetration-resistant boot soles on a construction site, fall arrest harnesses where falls are likely to cause serious injtrry or death. 

In some cases the eqrripment is the primary means of preserving life, e.g. self-contained breathing apparatus in an inert gas atmosphere, or while working rmderwater, or in a vacutun. 

Mar f items of PPE are the subject of testing to an accepted national or international standard. In addition, flow charts within some standards assist in selecting the specific type of a particular category of PPE, e.g. choice of self-contained breathing apparatus, positive pressure air-supplied respirator, powered air purifying respirator, or passive respirator (and which type of cartridge or canister), if respiratory protection is being sourced. 

Within this envelope of equipment which meets the standards, the purchaser in the workplace should take note of price, availability, degree of comfort, fit and acceptability to the workforce, spare parts and technical backup, and ease of cleaning and maintenance. Acceptability ( the look ) and comfort are important because they will affect the degree to which workers comply with instructions to use PPE. 

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The use of personal protective equipment is very important in spill situations because response personnel face exposure to chemicals that could cause serious injury or illness. The hazards are accentuated by the unknown physical environment of the spill site and the random nature of spills. The multiple hazards of spill sites distinguish such incidents from spills in the laboratory or exposure to chemicals in the workplace. Spill responders entering a site cannot always predict what chemicals or concentrations they will encounter and what other hazards may be present. There is also a lack of standards and guidelines for selecting and using personal protective equipment for chemical spill emergency situations. Most standards are written for use in the workplace and may not be fully applicable to emergency situations. 

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